This invention relates generally to plant husbandry, and more particularly to a novel device for holding a planter while providing both a reservoir for receiving excess water from the planter and an extendable plant support.
Many varieties of potted house plants tend to spread excessively or grow to a height which cannot be supported adequately by their roots and/or stalks. As a consequence, unless such plants are provided with some type of support, their appearance and health may be damaged by excessive spreading, drooping, stalk breakage, or the like.
In the past, the usual support for potted plants has taken the form of a dowell, stick, ruler, or the like, one end of which is simply pushed into the soil within the planter. Unfortunately, such supports have proven less than satisfactory. Even if pushed relatively deeply into the soil they are quite susceptible to dislodgment if inadvertently bumped or jarred, or if the plant becomes markedly one sided or top heavy. Particularly after being moistened, soil is relatively soft, and provides substantially reduced resistance to dislodgment and tipping of a heavily weighted plant support.
Also, the usual support is fixed in length. Thus, unless an unsightly long support is initially used in anticipation of the fully grown plant, it is necessary to disturb the soil and plant roots periodically in substituting successively longer supports to keep up with the plant growth.
Another problem connected with potted plants is in holding and disposing of excess liquid resulting from their watering. A shallow saucer, dish or similar container generally is placed under a planter to receive and hold excess water which would otherwise drain onto and rapidly stain and deteriorate any windowsill, table or other surface on which the planter might be placed. And while such containers have been used widely, frequently they have proven quite troublesome because of instability or sliding of the planter thereon, blockage of the planter drain, and limited fluid capacity leading to spills and overflowing.
These and other problems have been long recognized in the art, and various proposals have been made for their solution. Unfortunately, such prior proposals have met with little or no success. For instance, U.S. Pat. Nos. 291,569 and 3,447,263 teach the use of stakes which are extendable to compensate for plant growth, but such stakes are simply pushed into the soil and hence subject to dislodgment. Other proposals suggest an extendable plant support fixed to a mounting plate which is disposed within the planter under the soil, as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,471,968 and French Pat. No. 1,506,410. Such structures not only fail to provide an external reservoir for holding excess water, however, but they quite obviously would not be suitable for use with an already growing plant. The telescopic structure of U.S. Pat. No. 3,165,863 could be used with a growing plant, but here again dislodgment of the support would be a problem as would the retention of excess water.
Other proposals teach the use of saucers or similar receptacles for holding and feeding water to a potted plant, as represented by the following U.S. Patents:
3,769,748 PA0 2,691,245 PA0 2,504,031 PA0 2,206,694 PA0 1,928,810 PA0 616,968
Although such structures might be viewed as providing a reservoir capable of receiving and holding excess water which might be poured directly into the soil in the planter, they do not suggest any type of plant support.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,739,523 teaches a disc adapted to be placed under a planter and provided with a vertically positioned, hollow apertured rod containing a capillary wick material through which water is transferred between a separate saucer-like container and the soil within the planter. A plant support is shown as being attached to the upper end of the vertical rod. This prior device, however, does not provide for an extendable plant support, a support which is adapted to be inserted downwardly through the soil to minimize disturbance to the roots of the plants therein, a support which is selectively separable from the base or reservoir container, spacing of the planter above the bottom wall of the reservoir to provide free drainage and substantial reservoir capacity, nor other features representing adequate solutions to the problems discussed heretofore.
Accordingly, in spite of past attempts, the plant husbandry field has not succeeded in developing a simple, inexpensive, rugged, efficient and convenient combination planter receptacle/reservoir and plant support device.